1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, and a method and a program product to add recycling information. More particularly, the present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and a method and a program product to add recycling information, which are particularly applicable to recycling sheets of paper having images formed thereon.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, for the purpose of environmental protection, there is an ongoing trend of seeking the effective use of various types of resources. In particular, for the paper resource, the recycling system seems to have been almost established. To improve the quality of recycled paper, paper materials should be sorted before they are provided to the recycling process. Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-311753 discloses an image forming apparatus which has a feature of printing the type of paper on transfer paper together with toner images. Because the type of paper is printed on transfer paper in the image forming apparatus, the operator of the apparatus can sort the sheets of transfer paper by visually inspecting the printed paper type.
Quality of the recycled paper, however, is largely affected by the amount of extra components, such as ink, toner or the like, which are included in the paper materials. If the paper materials contain less extra components other than paper component, the resulting recycled paper will have a higher quality. Therefore, it is desired to sort the paper materials according to the amount of extra components other than paper component. The criteria for sorting the sheets of paper can be determined quantitatively, but the amount of extra components has to be judged by human senses because the sorting job presently relies on manpower.
The problem of sorting the sheets of paper by humans is the disability to quantitatively measure the extra components other than paper component, which may cause erroneous sorting, such as sorting some sheets of paper into the group of low extra component content, although those sheets should have been sorted into the group of higher extra component content.
In the meantime, to aim for the effective use of paper resource, images may be formed on both sides of the sheet of paper. Also, it may be desired to use the sheet of paper having the image previously formed on one side thereof and that image being unnecessary (hereinafter referred to as “back paper”) to form a new image on the other side thereof. To sort out such sheets of paper having images formed on both sides thereof, the operator must determine the amount of extra components through the visual inspection of the images, which may impede accurate sorting.